Samsung suggests you don’t update to Windows 10 until it gets around to making drivers

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Microsoft is doing everything it can to get everyone to install Windows 10 as it tries to leave Windows 8 in the dustbin of history. It made the update free, started bundling it with Windows Update, and it even started getting a little sneaky with the update prompts (before partially reversing course on that last one). However, Microsoft is definitely not on the same page here with Samsung, one of the largest makers of PCs. Samsung is actually advising people not to update its computers to Windows 10 because it has neglected to make compatible drivers.

The operating system on your PC is what you interact with on a daily basis, but simply updating that won’t necessarily mean all the hardware in your computer has what it needs to work. You need drivers for all of that, and that’s up to the device manufacturer, not Microsoft. Ever since Windows 10 started hitting PCs, Samsung owners have been complaining that vital pieces of hardware don’t work properly (or at all) after the update. Attempts to find updated drivers on Samsung’s site have been fruitless.

Some consumers have reached out to Samsung in search of a solution. One user found that the Broadcom wireless module in his Samsung NP-R590 laptop stopped working after updating to Windows 10. A surprisingly frank email from Samsung technical support said that the company is not recommending anyone update its machines to Windows 10 yet because certified drivers don’t exist, and there’s no timeline for when they will. The kicker is Samsung’s suggestion that people contact Microsoft directly about the issue. Microsoft will surely be unable (and unwilling) to fix this mess for Samsung.

Microsoft started pestering its partners about getting ready for the Windows 10 upgrade about a year and a half ago. Windows 10 started rolling out to consumers about six months after that. Samsung has had 18 months to get drivers ready for its computers, and there still aren’t any. Checking Samsung’s support pages, even laptops from a year or two ago still only have driver packages certified for Windows 8.1.

One of the main issues here is that a lot of Samsung’s laptops (but not all) will work in Windows 10 if you upgrade from Windows 8.1. However, going straight from Windows 7 is going to cause issues on most Samsung computers, according to the company’s own website. Microsoft still prompts Win7 users to upgrade, though. There’s no guarantee your hardware will stop working following the update, but if something does break, you’re going to be out of luck.

For a small electronics manufacturer this would be unacceptable, but for Samsung it’s disastrously negligent. Samsung makes a lot of different computers, and testing new drivers on all those hardware configurations is a serious undertaking. However, Samsung is one of the biggest consumer electronics companies in the world. It has the resources to do this, and it hasn’t.

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